Relive every moment of every first team game since the beginning of the 2005/06 season. Our archive of matchday threads originally posted in the General Discussion Forum.
Patito wrote:
Jovic will have been a bit out of our budget!
Besides we have our own - Haller, Anderson & Yarmolenko/Antonio
This is the ultimate magic triangle for me..
.................Haller
Anderson Fornals Yarmolenko
Gonna be some prospect once they all get up to speed with one another. That regularly gets a run out, expect to see us turn a few teams over by 3 or more goals. I really do think we're gonna be a nightmare to defend against this season, injuries permitting.
need to sort the defence out zabaleta ogbonna cresswell are poor now. however our starting back 4 is ok I feel if on form. fredericks diop Balbuena masuaka
we have Johnson who is improving very quickly and will be a useful man to have on the bench covering both fullbacks.
reid - is also returning to his old self but can he stay fit. If he can then we don't need another CB if not then we should sign marzipan asap.
pelle no doubt confirmed a few things in his mind with this trip to china:
zabaleta - too slow and old. last season for sure but will it be one too many.
cresswell - still poor and should be sold if possible
Johnson - looking good and may be the answer to our prays.
obiang - offers nothing and its good he is going.
ogbonna - is shaky and all over the place. should be sold and maripan brought in.
cullen - offers nothing and not good enough. sell to charlton for 3m
hernandez - ineffective as usual. big wages little impact. should sell for 8m
sanchez - is awful but no one will buy him as 35, injury prone and last year of contract. why did he buy him ?
Anderson - is a great player and will do well this season
so the only positives I can find are anderson`s form and the emergence of a youngster, ben johnson at fullback.
onto fulham away and fornals and haller joining up hopefully with more new signings
Not too worried about this result. Pre season friendlies in general are about fitness and gelling players.
In times gone by this time of year we'd be playing the Daggers, Orient, Gravesend and the like. We're only in Asia because of the PL mandated shirt sales cup. It's good for the club but not good for the team.
sendô wrote:Not too worried about this result. Pre season friendlies in general are about fitness and gelling players.
In times gone by this time of year we'd be playing the Daggers, Orient, Gravesend and the like. We're only in Asia because of the PL mandated shirt sales cup. It's good for the club but not good for the team.
So training and chasing Man City in high humidity isn't good for fitness? We might have gone a long way but there are reasons teams go to the US or Asia beyond shirt sales.
I'd rather we be struggling in heat and humidity for 10 days than strolling around Brisbane Road and Adams Park.
I know we went to china for the money and shirts sales, but I’d rather us play lower/similar level teams in UK/close by Europe and gaining fitness and hopefully pick up a few good results on the way.
Can’t be good for morale knowing you’ve just been easily beaten again by the premier league champions who you have to play on the first game of the season.
Hammer in Hornchurch wrote:
Can’t be good for morale knowing you’ve just been easily beaten again by the premier league champions who you have to play on the first game of the season.
We won all our pre-season games under Uncle Avram and look what happened
Yep, fair point.
A few of our players did look down on morale/uninterested (and some just not good enough) v Newcastle.
Im probably reading to much into it.
Apologies if discussed already, but from the stream which I watched, most of the coverage of the fans seemed to show Chinese fans in Newcastle tops. I saw very little of any coverage of our fans, local or otherwise. Was the Chinese support mainly in favour of the Geordies?
We are failing to convince our own supporters to turn up week in week out at the LS. I think Karen should focus on that before looking to expand the fanbase abroad. I think our fanbase has probably diminished somewhat since last week! We need Green Street 4 for that I reckon.
iLoveLasagne wrote:Apologies if discussed already, but from the stream which I watched, most of the coverage of the fans seemed to show Chinese fans in Newcastle tops. I saw very little of any coverage of our fans, local or otherwise. Was the Chinese support mainly in favour of the Geordies?
There's a video of a group of Chinese hammers from Shanghai singing Bubbles that's doing the rounds on social media (mostly for the wrong reasons though).
HammerMan2004 wrote:
So training and chasing Man City in high humidity isn't good for fitness?
The two things arent mutually exclusive.
Lets be frank here, we could have a full schedule of preseason matches against the 6 or 8 best teams in the world. Would that be good for us? Or good for fitness?
We dont need to be playing Man City pre-season to get us ready for the PL to start.
YorksHammer wrote:Personally I think it absolutely bonkers to put professional footballers on a plane to China after a couple of days back training from holiday and then expect 90 minutes of football from them. The injury risk feels especially high.
Quoting myself, but I just read some comments from Pep in a press conference.
We came here and 23 hours later travelled two hours by train to play in Nanjing then back to Shanghai. Now we are here and then to Tokyo. And always with the biggest smile.
We don’t sleep too well during the nights but, even so, we make good training sessions for all the guys.
How is that sort of travel schedule, and poor sleeping, any good for physical (and mental) fitness in preseason?